Term has happily come to an end up in now-icy Montréal, so I am catching up on all of the reading I missed in the last few hectic weeks. One paper I read some time ago but neglected to blog about is Privatization’s Progeny by Jon Michaels. A half-thought that occurred to me at the […] Read more

There is a very brief discussion in a recent Alberta Court of Appeals decision, Kretschmer v Terrigno, 2012 ABCA 345, of the relationship between the rule against bias and imputed conflicts of interest. The most interesting point to emerge is that the rule against bias, applied to adjudicators, may be less demanding than the rules […] Read more

News stories about an Ontario court striking down the City of Toronto’s ban on shark fin products (decision not yet available online), as well as a pending media engagement, led me to have another look at Hackland J.’s decision to remove Mayor Rob Ford from office earlier in the week.One of the aspects of the […] Read more

RM v. Scottish Ministers, [2012] UKSC 58 was a relatively straightforward case for the UK Supreme Court. The applicant/appellant is currently detained in a mental health facility under a compulsion order and wishes to apply to the Mental Health Tribunal for an order declaring that he is being held in conditions of excessive security. The […] Read more

Just a very brief note on a couple of recent first-instance decisions that caught my eye. It has been suggested (para. 22) that the Supreme Court of Canada has recently indicated a strong preference for deferential judicial review when decision-makers are interpreting their constitutive or “home” statutes. Nevertheless, the categories of jurisdictional error and general […] Read more

Plenty of cyberink has already been spilled on the removal from office yesterday of Toronto mayor, Rob Ford. Hackland J.’s decision has aroused surprise, support, calls for reform of Ontario’s Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, and, worst of all, bad sporting metaphors. While Hackland J.’s conclusions and interpretive approach are perfectly respectable, I do not […] Read more

One of the more interesting political stories in Québec at the moment involves the new environment minister, Daniel Breton and the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement. On a visit to the BAPE’s offices in October, Breton allegedly told members of the BAPE that he would telephone the chairperson whenever the BAPE made a recommendation he […] Read more

Quick and brutal. The webcast of the hearing in Canada (Attorney General) v. Kane, 2012 SCC 64, was barely up on the Supreme Court’s website before the appeal was allowed. Only 17 days elapsed between the hearing on November 6 and this morning’s per curiam opinion.Evans J.A. delivered a complex judgment in the Court of […] Read more

There is much to say about Samatar c. Canada (Procureur général), 2012 CF 1263, a case involving an apparent jurisdictional error, a flagrant breach of procedural fairness, and over-zealous advocacy on the part of an arm of the state.Martineau J. did not mince his words. In justifying the award of solicitor-and-client costs to the applicants, […] Read more

The Supreme Court of Canada took the (in my view) reasonable step in Newfoundland Nurses, 2011 SCC 62 of separating procedural review for failure to provide reasons from substantive review for reasonableness. One concern that might be voiced in response is that rolling a procedural right to reasons into substantive review may give too much […] Read more